Law Commons^™

When (And Where) Is A Crime A Crime? “Double Criminality” As A Principle Of Fundamental Justice, Robert J. Currie

Articles, Book Chapters, & Popular Press

The idea that crime crosses borders is fast becoming ordinary, even old hat, particularly in an age of online crime such as ransomware attacks, cyber-extortion and the like. As we have become more geographically mobile, however, it is increasingly common for people to have engaged in criminal conduct in one state1 but then seek to exercise legal rights, or face legal entanglements, in others. Legal questions can then arise about what effect should be given by one state—in this article, Canada—to an individual’s conduct that was, or is alleged to have been, a crime in a foreign state. The inquiry …

Windfall Taxes: The New Trend The United States Refuses To Take Part In, Maxwell Sears

Cardozo International & Comparative Law Review Blog

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022 resulted in a significant burden on Europe in regard to their energy sector. As a result of this conflict and the European Union’s (“EU”) subsequent restriction of oil and coal from Russia to the EU, the prices of the energy supply as a whole increased. However, companies in the EU were responsible for replacing much of the materials and energy that were once imported from Russia.

This post was originally published on the Cardozo International & Comparative Law Review on June 20, 2024. The original post can be accessed via the Archived Link button …

“Red Soles” And Search Engines: Louboutin Trademark Lawsuit Proves Chatgpt Is Unreliable Evidence Of Secondary Meaning, Gianna Policastro

Cardozo International & Comparative Law Review Blog

Across the globe, high fashion fans recognize “red-soled” shoes as “more than a [mere] color. It’s an attitude.” Christian Louboutin “turned his trademark [red] shade into a[n] internationally recognized symbol of luxury[,] … passion, power, sensuality, love, vitality, and a certain stylish insouciance à la française.” Christian Louboutin created his eponymous brand in 1993, and the French designer has filed trademark applications for its “RED SOLE” mark in numerous countries, including “France, Mexico, Singapore, New Zealand, Australia, the [United States], Moldova, the Philippines, Cambodia, Laos, Brunei, Indonesia, Morocco, Bahrain, Chile, Israel, Switzerland, Vietnam, Malaysia, and India.” Given Louboutin’s global presence, …

Give It A Nudge: A Comparative Analysis Of The Values And Application Of Voluntary Environmental Programs In The United States, Pianpian Wang

Dissertations & Theses

In recent years, companies have increased their voluntary commitments to reducing carbon emissions and implementing sustainability goals. While existing research mainly focuses on government-organized voluntary environmental programs (VEPs), exploring corporate voluntary commitments is essential. The business sector’s active role in environmental management is noteworthy. Traditionally, governments have relied on command-and-control regulations and market incentives to compel companies to protect the environment. However, companies are now demonstrating a willingness to go beyond legal requirements. Naturally, we seek answers to whether these commitments are effective, what factors can contribute to their authenticity, and how we compare these voluntary commitments to other VEPs. …

Authoritarian Privacy, Mark Jia

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

Privacy laws are traditionally associated with democracy. Yet autocracies increasingly have them. Why do governments that repress their citizens also protect their privacy? This Article answers this question through a study of China. China is a leading autocracy and the architect of a massive surveillance state. But China is also a major player in data protection, having enacted and enforced a number of laws on information privacy. To explain how this came to be, the Article first turns to several top-down objectives often said to motivate China’s privacy laws: advancing its digital economy, expanding its global influence, and protecting its …

Foreign Subsidy Regulation – Will The United States Follow The European Union, Or Lead From Behind?, Hannah Perez

Cardozo International & Comparative Law Review Blog

Back in December of 2022, the European Union (EU) adopted the Foreign Subsidies Regulation which requires notification and approval for certain mergers and other deals that ‘distort’ the internal market through receipt of foreign subsidies. One of the central concerns for the European Commission (Commission) in adopting this rule was curbing the “unfair advantage” that subsidies create over domestic companies in attempting to win contract bids. This regulation went into effect in July 2023 and has recently been put to work with the first in-depth foreign subsidy probe of the Bulgarian Ministry of Transport and Communications’ contract to acquire twenty …

The Chagos Archipelago: A Failure Of International Law To Protect Powerless Peoples, Cali Smith

Cardozo International & Comparative Law Review Blog

The opening act of 2024 featured David Cameron, the United Kingdom’s (UK) latest Foreign Secretary, dashing the hopes of a displaced people; the island natives of the Chagos Archipelago. The Chagos islanders (Chagossians) have waged a decades long battle for the right to return to their homeland, from which they were forcibly removed in the 1960’s and 70’s. The former Foreign Secretary, James Cleverly, indicated that the UK was in negotiation regarding the resettlement of the Chagossians to their native islands. However, on January 9, 2024 Cameron stated that the return of the Chagossians to their islands was “not possible.” …

Escalating Conflict-Related Sexual And Gender Violence In The Ongoing Sudan Conflict, Agnes Poplawski

Cardozo International & Comparative Law Review Blog

Since its independence from Great Britain and Egypt in the late 1950s, Sudan has been in a state of perpetual internal conflict. When Omar al-Bashir seized power and became Sudan’s president in 1989, the state had split into northern and southern Sudan, resulting in South Sudan’s secession. Sudan’s economy began to deteriorate, mass street protests erupted, and the military-civilian government was soon created and overthrown in 2021 when General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan took over. Since this time, the country had been run by a council of generals led by two military figures from opposing groups, bringing us to Sudan’s current …

Gender Quotas For Boards Of Directors: Norway And The United States, Lucy Paiste

Cardozo International & Comparative Law Review Blog

Despite unprecedented progress for women in the workplace, at the highest rung of the corporate ladder, the status quo remains. Women now account for more than half of the college-educated workforce in the United States and more than half of all currently enrolled law students. Looking further up, however, progress is slower. In 2023, for the first time in history, female CEO’s outnumbered CEO’s named John. Globally, women only occupy twenty percent of seats on corporate boards. More educated women participate in the corporate world at higher rates than ever, but what explains deficient representation at the top?

This post …

Providing Community Protection From Sex Offenders – At What Cost?, Jessica Novick

Cardozo International & Comparative Law Review Blog

With the release of The Ken and Barbie Killers: The Lost Murder Tapes mini-series documentary on HBO’s Max recently, a renewed focus can be put on the “dangerous offender” status that murderer and serial rapist Paul Bernardo has who is one of the two central figures of the docuseries. Sexual offenders are some of the most feared types of criminals in our current society. Law & Order: SVU just began airing its 25th season, and the enduring legacy of this show and others similar to it has enriched the cultural fear of sex offenders. Now is an important time culturally …

El Salvador’S Bitcoin Bond Is Finally Here!, Douglas Notaris

Cardozo International & Comparative Law Review Blog

In 2021, President Nayib Bukele of El Salvador had a bold vision for the nation. He aspired for El Salvador to transform into a “bitcoin haven.” Now, what does this mean, you may be wondering? Well, it all traces back to the enactment of the “Bitcoin Law” on September 7, 2021. With the passage of this law, El Salvador became the first, and still the only, country to designate Bitcoin as legal tender.This meant that every Salvadoran business was obligated to adopt Bitcoin for transactions, taxes could be settled using Bitcoin, and the government had the capacity to disburse subsidies …

The Future Of Transnational Surrogacy: Where Do Italy And The Uk Stand Now?, Elleme Ko

Cardozo International & Comparative Law Review Blog

The images of thousands of abandoned babies around the world gave the transnational commercial surrogacy market a global spotlight in 2020 when COVID-19 travel bans hit. As borders closed, intended parents or “fertility tourists” were unable to claim newborns born to surrogate mothers in Russia, Ukraine, the United States, and elsewhere. Babies were left for months in hospitals, orphanages, or in the hands of surrogacy agencies. “‘The image’—of the [commercial surrogacy] industry— ‘was really bad.’” Much attention has been paid to the effects of abortion regulation and access to contraception on women’s reproductive freedom. However, the politics of pregnancy through …

Unpacking Brazil’S Amendment To The Bankruptcy And Reorganization Act, Aaron Hemmings

Cardozo International & Comparative Law Review Blog

Brazil recently enacted significant amendments to its Bankruptcy and Reorganization Act through Federal Law No. 14,112/2020, which introduced substantial changes to the provisions laid out in Federal Law No. 11,101/2005. This legislation was initially crafted to facilitate the restructuring of insolvent businesses under court supervision, taking inspiration from the United States' Chapter 11 Bankruptcy. Chapter 11 serves as a blueprint for Brazil's Bankruptcy and Reorganization Act, focusing on the reorganization of a debtor's business affairs, debts, and assets. The primary objective of companies filing Chapter 11 bankruptcy is to secure time for debt restructuring and initiate a fresh start. The …

A Tale Of Two Subject-To-Tax Rules, Sol Picciotto, Jeffery M. Kadet, Bob Michel

Articles

In this article, we analyze and compare two proposals for a new subject-to-tax rule (STTR) provision to be included in tax treaties, one from the U.N. Tax Committee and the other from the G20/OECD inclusive framework on base erosion and profit shifting. The U.N. proposal is broad, and would clarify that restrictions in tax treaties on taxation of income at the source where it is derived are conditional on that income being taxed at an agreed-upon minimum rate in the country where it is received. The inclusive framework version is much more limited, being confined to payments between connected entities …

Stop The Boats: Prime Minister Sunak And The Uk’S Assertion Of National Sovereignty, Stefanie Allman

Cardozo International & Comparative Law Review Blog

The British Parliament is in the process of voting on the Safety of Rwanda (Asylum and Immigration) Bill, that would send asylum seekers who arrive in Britain to Rwanda, a country in East Africa. This change would indicate a further distancing of the United Kingdom (UK) from the European Union (EU) and international law. That said, when viewed in the context of the UK’s support for Ukraine, one can instead see an evolving view of individual national sovereignty.

This post was originally published on the Cardozo International & Comparative Law Review on March 4, 2024. The original post can be …

Evolving Sovereignty Relationships Between Affiliated Jurisdictions: Lessons For Native American Jurisdictions, Vaughan Carter, Charlotte Ku, Andrew P. Morriss

Faculty Scholarship

Though sovereignty is principally associated with governance over a territory and freedom to act in the international arena, this article examines sovereignty as empowerment. The study tests the applicability to Native American jurisdictions of the experiences of fifteen case study jurisdictions presently associated with the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, and France in shared sovereign relationships. The focus is on the evolution of those relationships and opportunities for development where jurisdictions do not attain full control over their affairs. The case studies examine the relationships from the perspectives of political, economic, and cultural sovereignty. The article further examines the relationships in …

Common But Differentiated Constitutionalisms: Does ‘Environmental Constitutionalism’ Offer Realistic Policy Options For Improving Un Environmental Law And Governance? Us And Latin American Perspectives, Erin Daly, Maria Antonia Tigre, Natalia Urzola

Sabin Center for Climate Change Law

Environmental law and governance have taken many different forms in the Americas in response to climate change mitigation. This contribution describes recent developments in the United States, Colombia, and Brazil, illustrating the divergent approaches to climate protection. The chapter highlights the common but differentiated ways in which the three countries in the Americas approach environment constitutionalism in the midst of the climate crisis. On one hand, Brazil and Colombia adopt a rights-based approach to tackle complex issues related to environmental law and governance in their context-specific responses to climate protection. In particular, the courts of Colombia and Brazil have been …

Nobody Understands My Language: An International Human Rights Crisis In U.S. Detention Centers, Kayla He

Cardozo International & Comparative Law Review Blog

Since 2016 when President Trump was elected, immigration has become a popular and polarizing topic in America. President Trump supported a hardline immigration policy of preventing migrants from entering the country by actively arresting and detaining migrants. Many human rights experts expressed concerns over the human rights violations at the United States-Mexico border as well as in detention centers. For instance, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) published a report describing the lack of medical access and supplies for basic needs at detention centers. The report indicated that oftentimes, migrants were detained without knowing when they would be released, and …

Judicial Ethics: Everyone Can Learn, Tamerick Gilyard

Cardozo International & Comparative Law Review Blog

The success of international courts, and our domestic courts, depends to a large extent upon the integrity and impartiality of those who decide the cases that come before them. For the institutional integrity of all courts, judicial ethics is of the utmost importance and vital for both the international and domestic courts. Most recently, the United States Supreme Court has come under fire because of the lack of ethical rules to guide or govern the justices’ behavior. The Supreme Court members are granted lifetime appointments, but are not subject to mandatory ethical rules. Alternatively, lower federal court judges do have …

The Need To Speed: The U.S. Interstate And The German Autobahn, Jacob Weinstein

Cardozo International & Comparative Law Review Blog

Were it not for the Interstate Highway System (IHS), driving to, from, and within regions of the continental United States would be a challenging endeavor. The pavement of the IHS was first laid when President Eisenhower signed the Federal Highway Act of 1954. According to the lore, Eisenhower first envisioned the IHS as a strategic military asset during his reign in Europe as the commander of the Allied Forces. However, in reality, it is slightly more complicated.

This post was originally published on the Cardozo International & Comparative Law Review on February 9, 2024. The original post can be accessed …

Modular Bankruptcy: Toward A Consumer Scheme Of Arrangement, John A.E. Pottow

Articles

In the world of cross-border corporate insolvency, those in the know are familiar with the increasingly popular scheme of arrangement, the British quasi-reorganization procedure that allows a company to restructure some, but not all, of its debt. The typical scheme effects a corporate balance sheet reshuffling by supermajoritarian approval (and judicial "sanction") but often leaves other debt, such as the trade, untouched. A key conceptual component of the scheme mechanism is its intentional modularity, called by some its "selectivity." It does not require a comprehensive reckoning of all claims against a given debtor, only some. The scheme has proved popular-so …

The Right To A Healthy Environment In Latin America And The Caribbean: Compliance Through The Inter-American System And The Escazú Agreement, Maria Antonia Tigre

Sabin Center for Climate Change Law

The Escazú Agreement has brought a myriad of environmental rights and duties to Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC), including the recognition of a right to a healthy environment and rights of environmental defenders. As a new agreement, the task of implementing the Escazú Agreement still lies ahead. Significantly, a non-judicial, non-punitive, consultative and transparent Committee to support Implementation and Compliance was established as a subsidiary body of the Conference of the Parties to promote implementation. Concomitantly, the Inter-American Court of Human Rights recognised an autonomous right to a healthy environment, establishing it as directly justiciable within the Inter-American System …

The Status Of The Icj Case Of Ukraine V. Russia, Anne Harper

Cardozo International & Comparative Law Review Blog

When Russia launched its full-scale invasion of eastern Ukraine on February 24, 2022, Russia claimed that the use of force in Ukraine was justified since Ukraine was committing genocide. Within a few days, Ukraine filed a petition with the International Court of Justice (ICJ). Ukraine evoked the ICJ’s jurisdiction under Article IX of the Genocide Convention, which provides the ICJ with jurisdiction to resolve “[d]isputes between the Contracting Parties relating to the interpretation, application or fulfillment of the present Convention, including those relating to the responsibility of a State for genocide or for any of the other acts enumerated in …

The Failure Of Australia's Voice Referendum: A Lost Opportunity For Progress?, Jennifer Grubman

Cardozo International & Comparative Law Review Blog

On October 14, 2023, Australia held its first constitutional referendum of the twenty-first century. Had the referendum succeeded, a section would have been added to the Australian Constitution not only recognizing First Nations as the “First Peoples of Australia,” but also establishing a body known as the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Voice, or the Voice. This was not Australia’s first constitutional referendum concerning First Nations. In 1967, Australians voted in favor of an amendment to the Australian Constitution that granted “state and National parliaments … concurrent power” to legislate for the First Nations. However, unlike the 1967 referendum, the …

Global Brand Protection In Web 3.0: Blockchain Domain Names And New Legal Challenges, Vera Glonina

Cardozo International & Comparative Law Review Blog

The development of blockchain technologies is changing the world by introducing new systems and opportunities. In particular, blockchain technologies are a key component of so-called Web 3.0, a new generation of the Internet, which incorporates “the idea of a new, decentralized internet built on blockchains, which are distributed ledgers controlled communally by participants.”

This post was originally published on the Cardozo International & Comparative Law Review on January 11, 2024. The original post can be accessed via the Archived Link button above.

Constitutional Constraint: The United States Should Follow In New Zealand’S Gun Reform Footsteps, Jillian Fantuzzi

Cardozo International & Comparative Law Review Blog

The Second Amendment to the United States Constitution protects “the right of the people to keep and bear arms.” The United States is one of three countries worldwide that provide a constitutional right to bear arms, but the only country where this right is not accompanied by a restrictive condition. Despite the apparent gun crisis that increasingly characterizes the United States, legislators struggle to implement regulation due to the Supreme Court’s classification of the Second Amendment as a right to self-defense. However, where the initial purpose of the Second Amendment was to equip civilians as members of the militia to …

Indigenous Peoples, Land Grabs In Brazil, And The Fight For Official Recognition, Christian Zavardino

Cardozo International & Comparative Law Review Blog

In recent years, the Indigenous peoples of Brazil have fought a host of legal obstacles to maintain sovereignty over their traditional ancestral lands, in large part owing to the policy imperatives of successive presidential administrations and Congresses that have favored agribusiness interests and commercial development of Brazil’s interior regions at the expense of the Indigenous peoples who live in these areas. The Brazilian Constitution of 1988 guarantees Brazil’s Indigenous peoples legal recognition of their ancestral lands via the “land demarcation” or “official land recognition” process, providing that the federal government shall recognize “their original rights to the lands they traditionally …

Exiting The Disaster, Evading The Responsibility? Wadi Al-Qamar -- The Moon Valley, Suzan Nada

Perspectives

This essay explores a case that delivered no results for the complainants, where harm was not prevented, and where stakeholders who filed the complaint were not compensated. Investigated by the Compliance Advisor Ombudsman (CAO) of the International Finance Corporation (IFC), the Wadi al-Qamar case illustrates some of the limitations of accountability mechanisms in limiting the harms caused directly or indirectly by projects in which the International Financial Institutions (IFIs) invest.

Victims’ Participation In An Era Of Multi-Door Criminal Justice, Béatrice Coscas-Williams, Hadar Dancig-Rosenberg, Michal Alberstein

Connecticut Law Review

Victims’ right to participate in their cases—to hear and be heard—has gained formal recognition in both common law and continental legal cultures over the past two decades. Paradoxically, even as victims’ rights are acknowledged, their participation in the judicial process is increasingly circumscribed due to the proliferation of abbreviated and efficiency oriented judicial procedures. Focusing on this paradox, this Article uncovers and analyzes the level of victims’ participation in an era of convergence and transformation of legal cultures and traditions. By exploring new ways to conceptualize the role of victims within contemporary criminal legal systems, this Article explores various and …

Looted Cultural Objects, Elena Baylis

Articles

In the United States, Europe, and elsewhere, museums are in possession of cultural objects that were unethically taken from their countries and communities of origin under the auspices of colonialism. For many years, the art world considered such holdings unexceptional. Now, a longstanding movement to decolonize museums is gaining momentum, and some museums are reconsidering their collections. Presently, whether to return such looted foreign cultural objects is typically a voluntary choice for individual museums to make, not a legal obligation. Modern treaties and statutes protecting cultural property apply only prospectively, to items stolen or illegally exported after their effective dates. …